Good thing I have a backup plan. Not that I did actually plan it. More than anything, I just want to kiss her. She’s deliciously warm, curvy, and delicate under my hands. Her entire body is melded with mine, and I’ve just spent the past few minutes inhaling her tender, sweet scent at her neck. Not kissing her isn’t really an option.
I could tell her we’re really selling it now in front of a whole crowd. Somewhere back there, my mom is probably watching. I could tell her I just wanted to be a dick and throw her off balance. I could tell her I thought she’d never stop talking, so I had to figure out a way to silence her. Chances are, I’m not going to tell her anything. She wouldn’t believe me anyway even if I told her the truth. That I couldn’t not kiss her because she’s perfect in every single way, and if I don’t take the opportunity, I’ll regret it forever. As it is, I have enough regrets already.
So yeah.
The kiss. The kiss is amazing.
I shouldn’t be kissing her, because kissing her makes me realize how unguarded it leaves me. I can usually lock the rest of the world out, be one thing, and put on a brave face, but with Sutton, she makes me want to come undone.
At first, Sutton doesn’t respond. She doesn’t resist either. Her lips just are there, but then they part on a soft sigh and yield to mine. They transform into something warm and alive. Welcoming. The taste of her is sweet and heady. She tastes like delicious sweet wine, honey, and burnt sugar, even though I’m sure she didn’t eat anything containing the last two. Kissing her makes my head swim.
Even after she pulls back, I can’t help myself, so I bury my nose in the delicate, sweet spot where her neck joins her shoulder. I inhale deeply, and she smells sweet there too.
“What are you—”
Her gasp is cut off by my sister’s soft laugh as my sister approaches us. She sneaks up on us like a cat, unseen. Sutton leaps back guiltily like we’ve done something wrong, and she eyes her shoe as she toes the floor awkwardly.
“I’d tell you to get a room,” Jennifer laughs, “but I already have one for you.” She holds out a small paper envelope with the key cards. “The room number is on the bottom there.” Looking every bit the charming bride she is, she turns to Sutton, who is looking suspiciously at the envelope that was just transferred to me. There might as well be something lethal in there. Like a viper. “Thank you for coming,” Jennifer says softly. She’s angled towards Sutton, away from me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my brother look as happy as he has tonight.”
“Oh, uh…” Sutton chokes.
Jennifer laughs. She punches me in the shoulder affectionately, like she has since we were kids. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to answer that. Have a good night, kids. I’m out of here soon.”
“So that you can get up early and open your mountains of gifts?”
“You bet. Why else does a person get married? It couldn’t actually be for love, could it?”
That earns a smile from me, but I roll my eyes too. Jennifer saunters away, grinning broadly, to check up on a few of the other guests and say goodnight to her friends and all the family. The party is still going strong—if you can count this as a party—but I guess, for some people, it’s a night out, and maybe for them, that’s their definition of a party.
“You’re horrible,” Sutton hisses under her breath. “Now, I’m pretty much going to be forced into staying, or this whole thing will look like a sham if I’m not there in the morning, at least to say hi and then disappear.”
“I could make excuses for you. Say you had somewhere to be.”
“On a Sunday morning.”
“The dryness in your tone is unmistakable.”
“Good!” She storms off towards our table. She’s surprisingly fast when she’s pissed. Surprisingly hot too. Maybe that’s not much of a surprise. Maybe it’s more of a given because she’s beautiful all the time.
I catch up with her as she snatches her clutch off the table and grabs one of the still full bottles of wine.
“What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“Use it to get through a painful night,” she grinds out. “Or maybe bottle you if I have to.”
“I didn’t think sleeping in the same room as me would be such a hardship.” I lean in close. I can’t help myself. I am a straight-up asshole when it really counts, and I guess this counts because I want to match her feistiness in every way.
Sutton snatches the envelope out of my hand and marches off. So…I guess that’s her way of saying she’s going to stay. I like that she’s pretending to be angry about it. Whatever. If she has to justify it that way to herself, I’ll let her. I’m starting to know Sutton, and I know she’s too nice to keep this up for long. She can’t be that mad. She was probably looking for an excuse to stay anyway. She didn’t exactly tell me no back there when I asked her. She just listed off the reasons she couldn’t, which mostly had to do with her grandmother expecting her back and the fact that we work together—like that really stopped her before. That’s not fair, shithead.
I don’t want to lose Sutton down the hallway, so I jog to catch up with her. She’s standing beside the elevator,
